Henri
Lefebvre on Praxis

The
concept of praxis is and is not
present in Hegel. For in his philosophico‑political system the divine,
providential state creates its own conditions, and these only count as
materials for the juridical and political structure. Because Hegel
views these elements or conditions merely as "moments," stages in the
development of the higher reality of the state, without any substance
of their own, he treats them as secondary.

In
Marx's Manuscripts of 1844,
the Theses on Feuerbach,
The Holy Family and
The
German Ideology (written in
collaboration with Engels in 1845/46),
the concept of praxis is clarified.

The
Manuscripts of 1844 criticize
and reject the basic categories and concepts of philosophy, including
the concepts of "materialism" and "idealism." What is "substance" in
the philosophical sense of the term? It is nature in metaphysical
disguise, arbitrarily separated from man. Similarly, consciousness is
the human mind in metaphysical disguise arbitrarily separated from
nature.

Both
materialism and idealism are interpretations
of the world, and both are
untenable in the face of revolutionary
praxis. They are no longer opposed and hence neither is valid. The
specificity of Marxism, its revolutionary character, and hence its
class character, do not derive from any option for materialist
assumptions, but from its practical
character, from the fact
that it goes beyond speculation, and hence beyond
philosophy—beyond materialism and idealism alike. There had
been
interpretations of the world in earlier thought, eighteenth-century
bourgeois thought, most notably. Although it is true that materialism,
generally speaking, has been the philosophy of oppressed and
revolutionary classes, including the middle classes, the function of
the working class is a radically new one. By clearly
stressing
praxis (society's actual doing and making, based on industry, which
makes it possible to become conscious of all human practice in
history), this class leaves behind and rejects once and for all earlier
interpretations of life which correspond to obsolete stages in the
class struggle.

Consequently,
Marxism (which
theoretically clarifies the situation of the working class and gives it
class consciousness at the level of theory) is not a materialist
philosophy because it is not a philosophy. It is neither idealist nor
materialist because it is profoundly historical.
It makes
explicit the historicity of knowledge; it elaborates the socio‑economic
formation of mankind in all its historicity.

Philosophy
explains nothing; it is
itself explained by historical materialism. Philosophy, a contemplative
attitude, accepts the existing. It does not transform the world, but
only interpretations of the world. The contemplative attitude, one of
the remoter consequences of the division of labor, is a mutilated, a
fragmentary activity. Now, the true is the whole. Philosophy cannot lay
claim to being the supreme, the total activity. The results achieved by
this contemplative activity are inconsistent with empirically observed
facts. There are no immobile absolutes, there is no such thing as a
spiritual beyond. Every absolute is a mask justifying man's
exploitation by man. Philosophical abstractions in themselves have no
value, no precise meaning. The true is also the concrete. The
propositions of philosophia
perennis either are tautologies
without content, or receive concrete meaning from some historical,
empirically verifiable content. To rise above the world by pure
reflection is in reality to remain imprisoned in pure reflection. This
position does not imply nominalist consequences; the universals are
grounded in praxis, which is itself objective.

Marx
denies the existence of several
qualitatively different types of knowledge, such as philosophical
knowledge on the one hand, scientific knowledge on the other. Abstract
philosophical thought is justified only as abstraction from particular
scientific insights, more accurately, for summing up the most general
results obtained from the study of historical development.

Historical
materialism is justified by
the aim of restoring to human thought its active strength—a
strength it had "in the beginning," prior to the division of labor,
when it was directly linked to practice. But it is also justified by
the "philosophical" decision not to be taken in by the illusions of the
epoch and to create a truly universal doctrine.

This
triple requirement (that thought
should be efficacious, true, and universally human) at once writes
finis to philosophy and yet represents its continuation, can still be
regarded as a philosophical requirement. It is not fully developed in The
German Ideology and The
Holy Family, but we find it at
the
heart of the subjects treated, the polemics, and the criticisms
contained in texts written later.

The
concept of praxis comes to the fore
in Marx's so-called "philosophical" texts. As we have just said, praxis
is defined by being opposed to philosophy and to the philosopher's
speculative attitude. Feuerbach, who rejected Hegelian philosophy in
the name of a materialist anthropology, did not succeed in getting
beyond the philosophical attitude. Although he emphasizes the world of
sense, he overlooks the subjective aspect of sensory perception: the
activity that fashions the object, that recognizes it, and itself in
it. Feuerbach does not see that the object of perception is the product
(or the work) of a creative activity, at once sensory and social.
Because he neglects the practical‑sensory activity, he all the more
neglects the practical‑critical, i.e., revolutionary activity. [11] In
opposition to a philosophical materialism which did not take praxis
into account, idealism developed the subjective aspect of human
thought, but only abstractly, ignoring sensuous activity (Theses
on
Feuerbach, I). Feuerbach himself
saw only the grimy workaday aspect
of praxis. However, philosophical materialism has even more serious
consequences. It attributes changes in mankind to changed circumstances
and the effects of education, forgetting that it is men alone who
change their circumstances and that educators themselves have to be
educated. Hence the materialist theory tends to divide society into two
parts, one of which is raised above the other. Consequently, just like
idealism, materialist philosophy justifies the state, not on the
pretext of organization but that of education (Theses
on Feuerbach,
III).

"The
question whether human thought
can arrive at objective truth is not a theoretical but a practical
question. It is in praxis that man must prove the truth, that is, the
reality, the exactness, the power of his thinking. The dispute over the
reality or non‑reality of thinking isolated from praxis is a purely
scholastic question" (Theses on
Feuerbach, II).

The
various branches of knowledge find
their scope and meaning in the way they are bound up with practical
activity. The "problem of knowledge" as speculative philosophers treat
of it, is a false problem. Abstract logical consistency, theory
divorced from social activity and practical verification, have no value
whatever. The essence of man is social, and the essence of society is
praxis—acts, courses of action, interaction. Separated from
praxis, theory vainly comes to grips with falsely formulated or
insoluble problems, bogs down in mysticism and mystification (Theses
on Feuerbach, VIII).

In
these early works praxis is defined
chiefly in negative terms: as that which philosophy ignores or
discards, as that which philosophy is not. This is a polemical
determination, although the negative serves to bring out what is
essential and positive for dialectical thought. Still, the new concept
is not fully elaborated. Marx has not as yet clarified it well enough
to forestall certain confusions. The criterion of practice, formulated
in the second of the Theses on
Feuerbach, will later be
interpreted as a total rejection of theory in favor of practicality, as
adherence to empiricism and the cult of efficiency, as a kind of
pragmatism. In the name of the critique of philosophy, the importance
of philosophy will be lost sight of, as will also the fact that for
Marx praxis involves going beyond philosophy.

Some
writers hold that the social
sciences (the human or behavioral sciences, among which sociology
stands in the forefront) are an adequate substitute for a philosophy on
its last legs. According to them, the symbols, visions, and concepts of
philosophy (which they treat as equivalent) will be supplanted by
formulations of empirical fact in the fields of sociology,
anthropology, cultural history, etc. These thinkers will find
themselves at a loss, sooner or later, when confronted by findings
specific enough but fragmentary, limited in their import, such as can
take on depth and range only by a return to some sort of
"philosophizing" (whether admitted as such or not). Or
else—it
comes to the same thing—the fragmentary techniques of the
specialists will promptly impel philosophers to step in and give
speculative unity to the formless mass of facts, techniques, results.
There will be a tug of war between positivism and philosophism, the
objective and the subjective, empiricism and voluntarism.

Others
maintain that Marx discovered
praxis all right, and his discovery makes philosophy useless while at
the same time clearing the way for realization of the philosophers'
dreams. Actually the concept of praxis is more complex than that. We
have noted that it involves differences, levels, polarizations,
contradictions. To analyze and expound its creative power, we must take
our point of departure from the universal concepts that philosophy has
elaborated.

If
the discovery of praxis is
interpreted as the rejection of philosophy purely and simply, are we
not moving toward a philosophy of praxis, pragmatism or something like
it, i.e., just another philosophy, derivative of or substitute for
philosophy in the old sense?

All
these tendencies are to be
discerned in the contemporary Marxist movement higgledy‑piggledy,
without elucidation of the hypotheses or their implications. Actually,
for all practical purposes, official Marxism takes an empiricist,
positivist attitude, under cover of a philosophical phraseology. Its
full confidence goes to the sciences and technologies (the natural or
physical sciences rather than the historical and social sciences). In
this way, under cover of an ideologized Marxism, it comes close to
endorsing a technocratic praxis. As for the philosophy of praxis
formulated by A. Gramsci, it turns into the justification of one
particular practice—that of the Party, the modern prince. In
other words, it becomes a philosophy of Machiavellianism, bestowing the
cachet of philosophy on political pragmatism.

As
for G. Lukács, in his History
and Class Consciousness, the
proletariat's class consciousness
replaces classical philosophy. The proletariat represents
"totality"—the apprehension of reality past, present, and to
come—the domain of possibility—in radical negation
of
existing reality.

Unfortunately
no such historical
consciousness is to be found in the working class anywhere in the world
today—in no real individual, in no real group. It is a purely
speculative construction on the part of a philosopher unacquainted with
the working class. Thus it is subject to the general criticism which
distinguishes between spontaneous
(uncertain, primitive)
consciousness and political consciousness
(resulting from the
fusion in action between the conceptual knowledge of scientists and
scholars—i.e., intellectuals—and the spontaneous
consciousness). Lukács substitutes a philosophy of the
proletariat for classical philosophy. His philosophy delegates
philosophical authority, the power of representing and systematizing
reality, to one thinker. This perpetuates the risks and dangers of
classical systematization even—and more than
ever—when the
thinker becomes the collective thinker! Lukács' theory of
class
consciousness has the same defect as the philosophy of praxis
elaborated by Antonio Gramsci. Both Marxist theoreticians have
conceived the end of
philosophy without its realization—a
very widespread error.

The
discovery of praxis does away with
autonomous philosophy, with speculative metaphysics. But it progresses
toward the realization of philosophy only to the extent that an
efficacious (revolutionary) praxis relegates to the past, along with
the division of labor and the state, the opposition between the world
of philosophy (the world of truth) and the nonphilosophical world (the
world of reality).

For
a number of reasons, some of which
were present in Marx's lifetime and some of which have emerged since,
but all of which are connected with the contradictory development of
Marxism in our time, we believe it indispensable to provide an
explication of the concept of praxis. To do this it is not enough to
group together excerpts or quotations from Marx and Engels; we have
also to clarify the concept in the light of modern man's experience and
ordeals. Only a full exposition of the concept, of what it implies as
well as of what it makes explicit, will show that it contains many
sociological elements—a sociology of needs, of objects, of
knowledge, of everyday life, of political life, etc.

In
the reading of Marx we propose, the
successive steps are gradually integrated in an ever broader and closer
conception of practical (political) action. Marx never went back on his
criticism of philosophy or on his concept of praxis. To the very end of
his life he intended to write an exposition of the dialectical method,
but he died without having carried out this project. Not only is Marx's
work unfinished, even its most developed portions are insufficiently
elaborated. This has contributed to no small extent to later
misunderstandings of it.

An
exhaustive study of the concept of
praxis in Marx, assuming that such a study is possible, would involve
the comparative analysis of a considerable number of texts. We are
leaving this task to others, as also the task of redefining the
relations between Hegel and Marx, and many other unsettled questions.
Our sole purpose is to make certain confusions less likely, if not to
prevent them entirely, and to show how Marx's concept of praxis leaves
room for sociology in the most modern sense of the term.

a.
The concept of praxis
presupposes the rehabilitation of the world of sense, restoration of
the practical-sensuous as called attention to above. As Feuerbach had
seen, the sensuous is the foundation of all knowledge because it the
foundation of Being. The sensuous is not merely rich in meaning; it is
a human creation. The human world has been created by men and women in
the course of their history, starting from an originary nature which is
given to us already transformed by our own efforts—tools,
language, concepts, signs. Wealth at once graspable and inexhaustible,
the practical‑sensuous shows us what praxis is. It is one continuous
revelation, a disclosure so unmistakable that we need only open our
eyes to perceive the enormous scope of praxis in this human creation
which encompasses landscapes, cities, objects of common use, and rare
objects (works of art). The unity of the sensuous and the intellectual,
of nature and culture, confronts us everywhere. Our senses become our
theoreticians, as Marx put it, and the immediate discloses the
mediations it involves. The sensuous leads us to the concept of praxis,
and this concept unfolds the richness of the sensuous.

Relations
between human beings are part
of this world of sense now rediscovered, revealed, recognized. For
before becoming another consciousness for the conscious subject, a
living being is merely an object. Precisely as a sensuous object, it
enters into more or less rich and complex social relations, which
reveal it as "subject," and allow it to exercise its subjective
powers—activity, reflection, desire.

b.
Man, the human being, is
first of all a creature of need. He "is" this to a greater extent than
animals are, for nearly all of them from birth onward possess means of
survival in their own bodies and their immediate environment. Failing
this, they simply die, individuals and species alike. In all human
activities, need in general (generically) asserts itself as a condition
of human life. There is nothing in human life that does not correspond
to some need or does not create a need, even in the most remote reaches
of culture and technology, let alone in economic life. In addition to
individual needs (which are satisfied only socially), there are social
needs proper and political needs, immediate needs and cultivated needs,
natural needs and artificial needs. Recognition of the subjectivity of
other human beings does become a human—that is, a
social—fact until the point is reached where the recognition
of
the others' needs becomes itself a conscious need. Finally, reason,
rationality at the individual and social level, does not emerge until
the development of needs has progressed to the point where human
communities have need of reason in their activities.

[Point b
continues, and points c,
d,
and e
follow. The concept of poeisis
is introduced.]

Such
a sociology [Marxian] would
accentuate the critical aspect of Marxian thought. The structures
generated by the process, the forms created by the contents, tend to
immobilize the latter. Radical criticism of structures and forms is
thus inherent in knowledge, not just the imposition of a value judgment
upon sociology (as a value judgment may be imposed on a statement of
fact). The results of praxis alienate human beings, not because they
"objectify" human capacities, but because they immobilize creative
powers and impede progress to a higher stage. Consequently the concept
of alienation does not lose its original force, dwindling to a vague
designation of the relations between man and his works, but becomes an
integral part of a sociology of structures and forms, of the
disintegration of forms and the dissolution of structures.

One
last observation on praxis.
"Thought and Being are distinct, but at the same time they form a
unity," Marx, inspired by Parmenides, wrote in Manuscripts
of 1844.
According to him, philosophy could not restore the unity of thought and
being, because it took its point of departure in their difference and
stayed within the difference. "The solution of theoretical riddles is a
practical task." True praxis is the condition of a real theory. The
only true praxis is the revolutionary praxis, which goes beyond the
repetitive and the mimetic varieties. "The resolution of theoretical
antitheses is possible only in a practical way, by virtue of man's
practical energy." Their resolution is by no means a purely conceptual
task, but a vital real task which philosophy could not perform
precisely because philosophy conceived of it as a purely theoretical
task. These philosophical antinomies include subjectivism vs.
objectivism, spiritualism vs. materialism, activity vs. passivity
(taken abstractly). [21]

Marx's
thesis that philosophy must be
transcended thus takes on a deeper meaning. Through praxis thought is
re‑united with being, consciousness with sensuous or physical nature,
the mind with spontaneity. Our emphasis upon praxis sanctions neither
the pragmatist interpretation, nor the elaboration of a new philosophy,
not even a philosophy of praxis. It calls for the analytical study and
exposition of praxis itself. This thesis does not relegate philosophy
to "the dustbin of history," but situates it in the dialectical
movement of consciousness and being, forms and contents. Philosophy was
a form distinct (too distinct, too detached) from contents in the
course of human development. This development is not thereby endowed
with some ontologically specially privileged status, such as would
promulgate historical time as explaining man in terms of causality or
finality. "Man" retains an ontological foundation. Where? In "nature."
Anthropology has a domain of its own, and man can be defined as sapiens,
faber,
ludens, etc. Such definition
never justifies
separating man from his material foundation, or dissociating culture
from nature, or what is acquired from what is spontaneously given. Like
the other sciences, sociology carves out a halfway house somewhere
between nothingness and the whole of reality. It has no right to set
itself up as a total science, claiming to encompass the totality of
praxis. [22]

[Notes]

11
We hardly need point out that this
applies to the theory of the "pratico-inerte"
in J. P. Sartre, Critique
de la raison dialectique. Sartre
misunderstands Marx's criticism of
philosophy, ignores how it restores the sensuous, and represents a
regression to Feuerbach's anthropology.

21
MEGA, v. III, p. 121.

22
Georges Gurvitch has pointed out
several times, particularly in his mimeographed course of Sorbonne
lectures, Marx’s importance as a sociologist. He has argued
his
views against philosophical, economic, and historical dogmatisms. The
position taken here differs somewhat from his. We do not believe do
that Marx's sociology is to be found almost exclusively in his early
works. We think it is possible to discern a sociological aspect in Capital.
Nor do we believe that Marx's sociology is primarily of retrospective
interest, etc.